It’s almost shirt sleeve weather in the evenings now.  A light jacket is enough to keep me comfortable when I take a casual stroll through the neighborhood.  I’ve been a walker ever since I can remember, always taking long meandering strolls through my territory whenever I had something on my mind, or, as mom used to say, I got "ants in my pants".  Four feet of snow or a torrent of rain are about the only things that’ll keep me from taking my walks, and even then it’s a near thing.  I do my best thinking while walking.  I devise software algorithms, write lines of code, compose cartoons, stories, email, blog posts (like this one), and ponder over various household chores and the Big Questions in life.  Sometimes the only way I can get a clear head about something is to take a walk and think it over.  I really look forward as winter recedes, to not having to bundle up whenever I get the urge to get out of the house and walk about for a bit. 

My neighborhood has several corner gas stations scattered around, and nowadays more then ever I’m always taking note of the price whenever I walk by one.  Regrettably it always seems to start rising again, whenever I start thinking about a road trip.  Tonight I noticed that the price had gone up ten cents a gallon in just the last few days.

Well my retirement fund isn’t giving me returns like that.  Maybe instead of buying savings bonds, I should just buy myself a gallon of gasoline and put it in a safety deposit vault somewhere.  By the time I’m old and gray I might be able to retire on that gallon of gasoline.